Years of Lead

The Years of Lead was a period of social and political turmoil in Italy that lasted from 1968 to 1988, marked by a wave of far-left and far-right political terrorism in the country. The period began with the murder of policeman Antonio Annarumma at a leftist demonstration and the subsequent Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969, and it continued until mid-1988. Far-left groups such as the communist Red Brigades and the anarchist Potere Operaio and far-right groups such as the National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo (backed by the ultraright Propaganda Due secret society) engaged in street clashes against each other, and they also launched terrorist attacks such as bombings (targeting government buildings, each other's rallies and homes, or public areas) and assassinations (targeting judges, lawyers, policemen, or rival militants). Over 428 people were killed in the violence, which came to an end in 1988.

Background
The 1960s was a turbulent decade across the world, as the rise of the counterculture movement and heightened Cold War tensions due to the Vietnam War led to a global rise in political extremism. In 1960, Prime Minister Fernando Tambroni controversially endorsed the fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), leading to riots and the downfall of the government. Widespread labor unrest and the collaboration of counterculture student activist groups with working class factory workers and pro-labor radical leftist organizations such as Potere Operaio and Lotta Continua culminated in the "Hot Autumn" of 1969, a massive series of strikes in factories and industrial centers in northern Italy. Student strikes and labor strikes, often led by leftist or Marxist activists, became increasingly common, often leading to clashes between the police and demonstrators (composed largely of students, workers, activists, and often left-wing militants).

1969
In 1969, public protests shook Italy, with the autonomist student movement being particularly active, leading to the occupation of the Fiat automobile factory in Milan. On 19 November 1969, policeman Antonio Annarumma was killed by far-left demonstrators during a riot in Milan. In December, the violence took a drastic turn when a bomb exploded at the National Agrarian Bank headquarters at the Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The Piazza Fontana bombing was later found to have been carried out by fascist militants, but it was initially blamed on the anarchists.

Rise of the extremists
In August 1970, Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol founded the communist Red Brigades, which gained support among far-left factory workers and students. That same year, the far-right also mobilized. Young far-right fanatics, elderly veterans of the Salo Republic, members of the State Forestry Corps, and right-aligned entrepreneurs and industrialists plotted the Golpe Borghese, in which Junio Valerio Borghese plotted the overthrow of the center-left national government in a coup d'etat. The coup plotters sought CIA backing, but only a few marginalized sectors of the CIA supported the coup, and it was called off; three months later, the plot was discovered, and 5 were arrested and 46 charged in relation to the coup.

Early 1970s
On 17 May 1972, policeman Luigi Calabresi was assassinated by the Lotta Continua group, opening a chapter of assassinations carried out by armed groups of the far-left. In response, the Italian military secret service collaborated with the fascist Ordine Nuovo group to stage a false flag attack to frame the left for a heinous crime. Vincenzo Vinciguerra planted a bomb in Peteano, Veneto on 31 May, killing three Carabinieri policemen. The SISMI military intelligence agency then assisted him in fleeing to Spain.

1973 saw continued violence, with Italian Social Movement militant Mario Mattei and his two sons being burned alive when Potere Operaio attacked their home on 16 April 1973. In May 1974, members of the Ordine Nuovo group bombed an anti-fascist demonstration in Brescia in the "Piazza della Loggia bombing", killing eight and wounding 102. On 17 June of that year, two MSI members were murdered in Padua by the Red Brigades. On 4 August, the Ordine Nuovo group responded by bombing the Italicus Express, killing 12 and wounding 48. By the year's end, Red Brigades leaders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini were arrested. Potere Operaio disbanded in 1973, and Lotta Continua followed in 1976; Autonomia Operaia succeeded Potere Operaio, while Prima Linea succeeded Lotta Continua.

In 1975, two fascist students associated with the Italian Social Movement - Mikis Mantakas and Sergio Ramelli - were assassinated by the Red Brigades. On 25 May, the fascists avenged their men by stabbing leftist student Alberto Brasili dead in Milan. On 29 April 1976, Prima Linea carried out its first assassination when it killed MSI lawyer Enrico Pedenovi; on 8 July, a neofascist killed judge Vittorio Occorsio in Rome.

The year 1977 was nicknamed "Time of the P38", referring to the Walther P38 pistol. After Lotta Continua member Francesco Lorusso was killed by the Carabinieri in Bologna on 11 March, the leftists unleashed a series of murders, including Turin lawyer Fulvio Croce on 28 April. In 1978, the Red Brigades continued their campaign of assassinations against several policemen, judges, and lawyers. That same year, the Red Brigades carried out their most infamous attack, when they kidnapped former Prime Minister Aldo Moro after killing five members of his security detail. Even the Italian Communist Party opposed his kidnapping, but Moro was murdered on 9 May 1978, with his body being found in a car trunk in downtown Rome that same day. Moro's assassination led to a large clampdown on the far-left, and many Autonomia Operaia members were arrested.

1979 saw the most assassinations of the period. Most of the assassinations were done by Prima Linea and the Red Brigades, and Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and Sicilian Mafia Gaetano Badalamenti were implicated in the 20 March 1979 murder of investigative journalist Carmine Pecorelli, who had begun to connect NATO's "Operation Gladio" stay-behind operation with the assassination of the leftist former prime minister, Aldo Moro.

The assassinations continued into 1980, a year that saw the deadliest terrorist attack of the era. The fascist Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari bombed the central railway station of Bologna, and the "Bologna massacre" left 85 dead and over 200 injured. Just as Moro's kidnapping caused the fall of popular support for the Red Brigades, the Bologna massacre led to the dismantling of the main far-right terrorist groups.

The 1980s saw the far-left terrorist groups carry out anti-American attacks, including the kidnapping of General James L. Dozier in Verona (which resulted in his 28 January 1983 rescue by Italian police in Padua) and the assassination of diplomat Leamon Hunt on 15 February 1984. The Red Brigades continued their armed struggle, assassinating former Mayor of Florence Lando Conti on 10 February 1986, Italian Air Force general Licio Giorgieri on 20 March 1987, and Senator Roberto Ruffilli on 16 April 1988, but it soon became clear that they could not overthrow the government. In 1985, French president Francois Mitterrand offered asylum to former far-left terrorists, providing an incentive for leftist terrorists to end their struggle. On 23 October 1988, the Red Brigades declared that their war on the state was over.

Aftermath
A total of 428 militants and civilians were killed during the "Years of Lead", while 2,000 people were injured. The extreme left and right declined in popularity due to their violent actions against each other, and Italy's politics moderated during the 1990s, with the Italian Communist Party adopting democratic socialism and transforming into the Democratic Party of the Left, while the Italian Social Movement adopting national conservative views and dropping its prior commitments to fascism. Despite these overtures, the violence continued on a sporadic and limited scale from the late 1990s to early 2000s, with Ministry of Labor consultants Massimo D'Antona and Marco Biagi being murdered by the Red Brigades on 20 May 1999 and 19 March 2002, respectively. However, the violence mostly came to an end, and the political polarization of the country eroded as the "First Republic" came to an end during the 1990s, and the era of populist parties such as Forza Italia, Lega Nord, and M5S began.